There are financing companies, such as IBM Global Financing (IGF), that generate revenue by extending financing to customers who acquire hardware, software, and/or services. Some financing companies, for example, use a contract process flow that involves either working directly with a customer or through a business partner to:
1) Obtain information about the customer;
2) Obtain the customer's credit score;
3) Establish the appropriate finance rates, terms, and conditions for the contract;
4) Present the contract to the customer;
5) Negotiate with the customer, if necessary; and
6) Close the contract.
Due to the manual nature of this type of contract process, the end-to-end cycle time can be anywhere from several days to several months. This can have a significant negative impact on customer satisfaction as well as a finance company's ability to close deals.
Throughout this type of contract process, the employees of a financing company often work closely both on the customer front as well as on the backend to ensure successful execution of a contract. This typically results in significant overhead costs that must be offset by any profit generated from the contract. Due to this cost structure, and because profit is often small when dealing with smaller size customers, many financing companies will only involve themselves in high dollar volume deals, typically associated with larger size customers.
There is a need, therefore, for a contract process that has a shorter cycle time and reduced overhead.